RELEASE: JUNE
Fast Card
Although notebook computers make the perfect mobile editing suite, Apple hasn't included a way to capture motion images into its PowerBooks. Newer Technology addresses this acute need with a card that'll add a whizzy FireWire port - aka IEEE 1394 - to any G3 PowerBook.
Newer's $249 FireWire 2 Go CardBus card speaks FireWire's 100-, 200-, and 400-Mbit-per-second dialects and is just the thing for offloading video from a DV camcorder onto a PowerBook's hard disk. Thanks to Apple's FireWire system software, capturing DV data to disk is a snap on a 300MHz or faster PowerBook G3. Slower PowerBooks may sometimes miss a frame now and then. External FireWire drives are also supported.
The only evident downside of the FireWire 2 Go is that it - like Sony's laptop i.Link ports - doesn't provide power on the FireWire. Then again, no one really wants a video camera draining their PowerBook's batteries anyway.
Newer Tech: +1 (316) 943 0222, www.newertech.com.
RELEASE: LATE SUMMER
Stove-Top Box
Ten years ago Bob Lamson introduced the Juiceman juice extractor by demonstrating it at houseware expos and airing countless infomercials. A few years later, Lamson brought out the Breadman and successfully added "Healthy Bread" to "the Power of Juicing" in buyers' subconscious minds.
With his new startup, CMi Worldwide, Lamson takes on the computer industry. The kitchen-friendly Advantage 2000 looks and works like a regular TV ... but wait, there's more: The info appliance also runs interactive cooking shows on CD-ROM, plays music, sends email, provides a video monitor to check the front door, and pulls up Web pages from its own home-information portal. It even has the capability to control other kitchen appliances, sending signals through power lines using the EHS (European home systems) standard. The CD-ROMs, which are in the video CD format, let you put a beef stroganoff lesson on Pause while you catch up at the cutting board, and you can switch over to television instantly.
Some of Lamson's competitors are Windows based, but the CEO's focus groups told him Windows was the last thing they wanted in their kitchens, so his machine uses Spyglass' browser and a Wind River Systems OS. It feels nothing like a desktop.
Someone is going to wire the heart of the home. Other entries in the household-infopliance race include Brother's Kitchen Assistant, Qubit from Qubit Technology, and Global Converging Technologies' Cendis Phone. Will it be a computer industry still rooted in business applications, or a man who turned a juice extractor into a best-selling panmedia celebrity phenomenon? At trade shows, Lamson pours coffee onto the Advantage 2000's wireless keyboard to show that it's spillproof. Unlike typical computer-product presentations, this demonstration would make sense to anyone.
CMi Worldwide: +1 (206) 448 0354, www.cmiworldwide.com.
RELEASE: JUNE
fleaBay
Having a garage sale Sunday? Hold it online, too. Billpoint offers a way for everyday people to set up credit card transaction areas on their own Web sites. Founded in part by Excite and Classifieds2000 escapees, the company aims to make person-to-person online transactions commonplace.
Billpoint's service is offered on the Homestead site, where you've been able to set up free homepages and add functions like search engines, stock tickers, and weather forecasts. Now you can drag a Billpoint credit card element onto your page, fill out the online form, wait for approval, and - voilà! - start taking Visa. The company charges a small transaction fee for each sale and then regularly sends you checks.
What about fraud? Treachery? Deceit? Billpoint claims to have worked all that out, including payment disputes. And there is a screening process for sellers, though the company says it's quick and painless.
As you come across more Joe Schmo ecommerce sites, you may find yourself wondering, "Is this just some guy selling stuff, or is it a tax-free business?" That's one can of worms Billpoint has opened. But, hey, now you can sell a can of worms online - and take plastic for it.
Billpoint, on Homestead Technologies: www.homestead.com.
STREET CRED
Basement Area Network
Hacking the Vacuum Tube
Free of Attachments
Polaroid's Sticky Portal
Burnt Rubber, Chicago Style
Booting Up Beelzebub
Out of the Celluloid Closet
ReadMe
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Saar-Sighted
The Transreal Thing
I, Nicklaus
American History f/x
Just Outta Beta
Little Big Screen
"It Was Just the Law of Large Numbers at Work"
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